The International Standing Conference for the History of Education and "Paedagogica Historica": A Historical View on Institutional Strategies and Practices

Fuchs, Eckhardt

Paedagogica Historica: International Journal of the History of Education, v50 n6 p737-755 2014

This article seeks to contribute to the institutional history of the discipline of history of education by examining the publication strategies and the associated institutional practices of the International Standing Conference for the History of Education, the international organisation representing those working in the field, and "Paedagogica Historica," the most significant journal in the discipline internationally, as well as illuminating the interactions and interrelationships between the two institutions. It will focus on the early 1990s, due to the fact that, at the end of the 1980s, both institutions found themselves facing crises which led to profound and far-reaching processes of reform, which in their turn engendered a rapprochement and, eventually, cooperation between the two institutions. After providing brief overviews of the development of both ISCHE and "Paedagogica Historica" up to and into the 1980s, the article will concentrate in its third part on the long-lasting--commencing after ISCHE's foundation in 1979--and multi-faceted relationship between the two, both of which made significant contributions to the emergence of an international academic community of those working in history of education. The article will additionally explore the range of strategies used by the two institutions in relation to the publication of findings in the field and the institutional practices of cooperation with and demarcation from one another exercised by ISCHE and "Paedagogica Historica."